An 'Angel Investor' for Nonprofits

July 19, 2007 -- When we think of homeless people many of us conjure up a fuzzy picture of the millions of people we see, and often choose to turn away from, who make their homes on the sidewalks and streets of our cities, alongside garbage, cockroaches, rats and all sorts of unimaginable diseases.

But thanks to the existence and efforts of organizations like Echoing Green, however, our current image of the homeless may soon become a thing of the past. Echoing Green is a global nonprofit organization that provides funding to individuals they consider the "best emerging social entrepreneurs." One such individual is Adam Bucko, co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation, a nonprofit organization that "empowers the homeless to design their futures."

Lara Galinsky, vice president of Strategy for Echoing Green, Bucko, and two homeless youth empowered by The Reciprocity Foundation's work recently appeared on ABC News Now's "All Together Now" to discuss Echoing Green's fellowship program.

Founded in 1987 with the help of the private equity firm General Atlantic, LLC, Echoing Green's role is described by Galinsky as being "essentially like an angel investor in the nonprofit sector. We invest in individuals who have bold ideas for social change by providing them with seed funding, leadership and professional training, as well as technical and wraparound assistance to start their organizations with a strong foundation."

Echoing Green's social investments span the health, human rights, education and environment sectors, among others. The organization has provided more than $26 million in seed capital to nearly 450 visionary leaders, who have created hundreds of new nonprofit organizations in 41 U.S. states and 40 countries and raised close to $1 billion in additional funding.

When asked what differentiates social entrepreneurial work from that of traditional charities, Galinsky explained that "social entrepreneurship is about taking a root cause approach to social change. It's not about just providing services but about looking at a problem at its root and trying to solve that problem --